Is it Time to Make a Change?
If you want to get off US Tech, now is a good time, since all regulation is off and the government is open for purchase. Here are the basics – with gratitude to kaylee rowena: https://acd.works/degoogle
If this is about protecting your activism, start here: https://activistchecklist.org/
The Google Ecosystem Trade-Off
Getting off Gmail and Google Drive?
If you are deep into those, it’s a trade-off. You got free, always-working, high-featured tools and all you had to offer in response was your privacy and your autonomy over your decisions (and your safety, if the government wants to target you based on online activity). It’s the same bargain as FaceBook and Instagram, which are actually far worse… so get off those Meta products and onto Mastodon and Signal first!
Anyhow: If you decide to take back your privacy and autonomy, you’ll need to accept some feature, performance and interoperability losses, and probably start paying a little money (unless you want bare bones only — for example, you can’t forward Proton.me emails to your other account without paying, and CryptPad is far more erratic than Google drive).
These are all the author’s experiences and sense of things, so YMMV. But with that, let’s help you do what you’re ready to do!
Let’s Get Started!
For DeGoogling, here are some guides from one spot, with gratitude to iode.os – although you may see different answers in other places, so it’s good to cross reference:
- DeGoogle Your Private Life #1 – Mail
- DeGoogle Your Private Life #2 – Contacts and Calendar
- DeGoogle Your Private Life #3 – Maps and Navigation
- DeGoogle Your Private Life #4 – Real time messaging (Signal, obviously)
- DeGoogle Your Private Life #5 – Private Web Browsing
Keeping Gmail, Chrome and Drive? You can decide how much AI to deal with. See How to DeGoogle – Step by Step below.
Using Android? Android is Google-over-Linux, so while pretty much the same for the apps, much more complex options for the OS. See ADB App Control. More on that.
The Microsoft Ecosystem
If you’re still using Windows, then either you need the OS and its applications for work, you never thought about operating systems, or you didn’t know there were any other options — because Windows is bloated, nosey, and constantly finding new ways to interrupt you.
[Side-note: I got my first school admin job by taking Windows off all the other school administrators’s PS II’s, because they only ran DOS apps and didn’t need to wait for the UI to load. Ok that dates me some. Confession: I kept a Windows box alive until October, see below.]
Using Windows 10? You’re not secure anymore – security features sunsetted last October. And Windows is the main target of viruses all over — so you’re pwned, my friend!
Using Windows 11? You can’t extract AI/tracking without downloading Github files here or here which means you trust those developers.
How about Linux instead of Windows? Unless you have Microsoft-specific apps with no open source versions, or your workplace uses Microsoft, switch your device to Linux (ask Redistro’s Free Linux team to install Linux Mint for you). It comes with LibreOffice and FireFox browser, but folks recommend Vivaldi (or LibreWolf for techies). Use DuckDuckGo for search.
The Apple Ecosystem
Using Apple products? Did you know some MacOS components are based on a stable version of Linux called FreeBSD? Unlike Windows, Apple tends to let you do what you want to do without bothering you — if you can afford it. And Apple laptops make great Linux laptops when they get old!
You can turn off Apple Intelligence features on MacBooks and iPhones, though they will stay waiting in the OS – you can’t remove them. However, that sacrifices Siri, and with it, speech-to-text, which you might have come to rely on, particularly when driving and asking your car to pull up directions for someplace.
How to get AI off your Google: Step By Step
These steps are often changing – when Google updates something big, it turns the AI back on and waits for you to notice and fix it.
Gmail and Google Drive (Workspace)
- Open Gmail.
- Click the Settings (gear icon) in the top right and select See all settings.
- On the General tab, scroll down to the Smart features and personalization section.
- Uncheck the box.
- Scroll down and click Save Changes.
Google Chrome Browser
- Open Google Chrome and click the three dots in the top right corner.
- Go to Settings, then click System on the left-hand menu.
- Toggle off any options related to AI innovations, Gemini, or Enhanced suggestions.
- For deeper system AI (like Gemini Nano), type chrome://flags into the address bar and press Enter.
- Search for “AI” in the flags bar, change Omnibox AI mode and related AI features to Disabled, and click Relaunch.
Google Account Data Access
- Go to your Google My Activity page.
- Click on Gemini Apps Activity.
- Toggle off Gemini Apps activity to stop Google from logging your AI usage.
- You can also click Delete activity by to wipe your past AI search and prompt history.
